So I went out in town and tried to make the photo look like it was made a long time ago...

[Randy]

What do you do with an expensive camera. I drilled a tiny tiny hole in a lens cap, and then put the cap on my Nikon DF. I went to town and shot a couple of pics. Went into Lightroom, then Photoshop, then Filter Forge. I tried to make the photos look like the shots seen from the 1890's. What do you think?

[DeMorcan]

Individually they are pretty much like early film cameras with the poorer lens. Although the Civil War era glass slide cameras were a lot sharper as were mercury vapor prints. They did not have quite that much vignetting. Although it is a neat look. https://www.loc.gov/photos/ has photos grouped by decade of photos from the 1800s through the 2000s. The British Museum also has good examples (and they are on Flickr). Search Kodak Brownie photos to see what amateur photos looked like in the 1900s. And, of course there are samples of Civil War photogrpahy all over. These are closest to the photos taken in the 1820s. By the Civil War they were making photos that were sharper than 35mm film ever was. Very neat one at a time. As a group, I notice the scratches are the same in all of them. Of course if I had not grown up with pre Civil War photos stored under glass with these fold up velvet covers so they never faded, I would have no idea of how good they really were. All that said, I like your faux old photos. Attached is a photo taken in 1839. It happens to be the first exposure with people who are blurry because of the exposure time.

[Randy]

Thanks demorcan, it was an excersie in making a pinhole camera.I haveproblems finding the focus, so just having fun. The scratches are kinda bunk, the pics without them are cool too. I have seen so many of the old photographs and have a page just for the history of photography. Cheers!
https://www.rsdunphyphotography.com/history

[DeMorcan]

Pinhole explains it. I remember I made a pinhole in an old Quaker Oats box with the film curved on the back. Had to keep making smaller holes to get sharper. When I was in a Bohemian community we made a pinhole in the window and looked at the street outside down on the wall. It was kinda neat. It was in an old warehouse we bought converted so everyone could have their own work areas upstairs and the communal area downstairs. It was kinda neat getting comments and ideas while I was working on a project.

[Rob Trek]

These are pretty cool, Randy!